II
To return to the writer of the letter, whose career was momentarily cut off by the episode of the horse trade (who, if he had previously received a letter written by somebody else would have been an entirely different person and not in this novel at all): John Lummox—known to his family as "the perfect Lummox"—had been two years in college, but thought it rather fine of himself—a habit of thought in which he frequently indulged—to become a clerk, but finally got tired of it, and to his father's relief went to Europe for a couple of years, returning with some knowledge of French and German, and the cutting end of a German student's blunted dueling sword. Having, as he felt, thus equipped himself for the hero of an American "Good Society" novel, he went on board a "liner," where there would naturally be susceptible young ladies. One he thought he recognized as a girl with whom he used to play "forfeits" in the vulgar past of his boyhood. She sat at his table, accompanied by another lady whose husband seemed to be a confirmed dyspeptic. His remarks struck Lummox as peculiar.
"Shall I begin dinner with pudding and cheese or take the ordinary soup first? I quite forget which I did last night," he said anxiously to his wife.
But Mrs. Starling hesitated.
"Tell me, Mary," he said, appealing to Miss Bike, the young lady.
"I should begin with the pudding," said Miss Bike decisively, "and between that and the arrival of the cheese you can make up your mind, and then, if you think better, go back to the soup."
"Thank you so much. Now, as to drink? Shall I take the Friedrichshalle first or the Benedictine? You know the doctor insists upon the Friedrichshalle, but I don't think I did well to mix them as I did yesterday. Or shall I take simply milk and beer?"
"I should say simplicity was best. Besides, you can always fill up with champagne later."
How splendidly this clear-headed, clear-eyed girl dominated the man! Lummox felt that REALLY he might renew her acquaintance! He did so.
"I remembered you," she said. "You've not changed a bit since you were eight years old."
John, wishing to change the subject, said that he thought Mr. Starling seemed an uncertain man.
"Very! He's even now in his stateroom sitting in his pyjamas with a rubber shoe on one foot and a pump on the other, wondering whether he ought to put on golf knickerbockers with a dressing-gown and straw hat before he comes on deck. He has already put on and taken off about twenty suits."
"He certainly is very trying," returned Lummox. He paused and colored deeply. "I beg," he stammered, "I hope—you don't think me guilty of a pun! When I said 'trying' I referred entirely to the effect on your sensitiveness of these tentative attempts toward clothing himself."
"I should never accuse YOU of levity, Mr. Lummox," said the young lady, gazing thoughtfully upon his calm but somewhat heavy features,—"never."
Yet he would have liked to reclaim himself by a show of lightness. He was leaning on the rail looking at the sea. The scene was beautiful.
"I suppose," he said, rolling with the sea and his early studies of Doctor Johnson, "that one would in the more superior manner show his appreciation of all this by refraining from the obvious comment which must needs be recognized as comparatively commonplace and vulgar; but really this is so superb that I must express some of my emotion, even at the risk of lowering your opinion of my good taste, provided, of course, that you have any opinion on the one hand or any good taste on the other."
"Without that undue depreciation of one's self which must ever be a sign of self-conscious demerit," said the young girl lightly, "I may say that I am not generally good at Johnsonese; but it may relieve your mind to know that had you kept silence one instant longer, I should have taken the risk of lowering your opinion of my taste, provided, of course, that you have one to lower and are capable of that exertion—if such indeed it may be termed—by remarking that this is perfectly magnificent."
"Do you think," he said gloomily, still leaning on the rail, "that we can keep this kind of thing up—perhaps I should say down—much longer? For myself, I am feeling far from well; it may have been the lobster—or that last sentence—but"—
They were both silent. "Yet," she said, after a pause, "you can at least take Mr. Starling and his dyspepsia off my hands. You might be equal to that exertion."
"I suppose that by this time I ought to be doing something for somebody," he said thoughtfully. "Yes, I will."
That evening after dinner he took Mr. Starling into the smoking-room and card-room. They had something hot. At 4 A. M., with the assistance of the steward, he projected Mr. Starling into Mrs. Starling's stateroom, delicately withdrawing to evade the lady's thanks. At breakfast he saw Miss Bike. "Thank you so much," she said; "Mrs. Starling found Starling greatly improved. He himself admitted he was 'never berrer' and, far from worrying about what night-clothes he should wear, went to bed AS HE WAS—even to his hat. Mrs. Starling calls you 'her preserver,' and Mr. Starling distinctly stated that you were a 'jolly-good-fler.'"
"And you?" asked John Lummox.
"In your present condition of abnormal self-consciousness and apperceptive egotism, I really shouldn't like to say."
When the voyage was ended Mr. Lummox went to see Mary Bike at her house, and his father—whom he had not seen for ten years—at HIS house. With a refined absence of natural affection he contented himself with inquiring of the servants as to his father's habits, and if he still wore dress clothes at dinner. The information thus elicited forced him to the conclusion that the old gentleman's circumstances were reduced, and that it was possible that he, John Lummox, might be actually compelled to earn his own living. He communicated that suspicion to his father at dinner, and over the last bottle of "Mouton," a circumstance which also had determined him in his resolution. "You might," said his father thoughtfully, "offer yourself to some rising American novelist as a study for the new hero,—one absolutely without ambition, capacity, or energy; willing, however, to be whatever the novelist chooses to make him, so long as he hasn't to choose for himself. If your inordinate self-consciousness is still in your way, I could give him a few points about you, myself."
"I had thought," said John, hesitatingly, "of going into your office and becoming your partner in the business. You could always look after me, you know."
A shudder passed over the old man. Then he tremblingly muttered to himself:
"Thank heaven! There is one way it may still be averted!" Retiring to his room he calmly committed suicide, thoughtfully leaving the empty poison bottle in the fender.
And this is how John Lummox came to offer himself as a clerk to Dan'l Borem. The ways of Providence are indeed strange, yet those of the novelist are only occasionally novel.